Dear Jade,

Have you ever heard cats yowling? It’s expressive, that’s for sure. Sometimes when I yowl or sing, my voice cracks a little bit.

I asked my friend Alisa Toy why that happens. She’s a professional singer who teaches in the School of Music at Washington State University.

She told me it has to do with the muscles that move the larynx. That’s sometimes called the voice box. It’s a hollow tube that’s important for breathing and talking.

When you talk or sing, you push air from your lungs up through your larynx. The air passes through an opening made by your vocal folds. Those are incredibly thin tissues in the middle of your larynx. They vibrate as the air whooshes past them. That vibration makes the sound that becomes your voice.